Astound
by RichelleBrinkley
Summary: Because some things are better off not knowing. / Or, how Tom falls in love with Richelle, told in five parts.


**Title: **Astound

**Author: **RichelleBrinkley

**Word Count: **2,718

**Rating:** T (mentions of under-age drinking)

**AN: **After half a year's break due to exams and uni application stuff, I am very happy to announce that yes, I am back.

The gang are around 16-17 in this story.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Raven Hill Mysteries/Teen Power Inc., it belongs to Emily Rodda.

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For all intents and purposes, Tom Moysten can safely say that Richelle Brinkley is, without a doubt, the most conceited, boring and stuck-up girl he has ever had the displeasure of knowing.

And yet, despite—or perhaps it is _because_ of this—the blonde bane of his existence somehow manages to get under his skin in the most inconvenient of ways possible.

She makes him fall in love.

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The first time Tom senses there might be something going on, he merely shakes his head vigorously and tries to ignore it.

It starts with a party at Nick's house, a night of loud music and cheap alcohol to celebrate the solving of yet another mystery. Balloons are strewn across the floor, and the lights are dim and the room almost suffocatingly warm.

Tom laughs and he dances with Sunny, giving her a playful wink as he grabs her by the wrists and the two of them spin round and round on the spot—faster and faster until they are both breathless and shouting and have to let go, doubling over, Tom's stomach aching from laughing so hard.

He ruffles Sunny's hair playfully, his head spinning and sweat beading on his brow. He is dizzy and accidentally staggers into the door frame, which makes a rather loud _thump_ that is lost in the music, but leaves his shoulder sore and throbbing.

Cursing, Tom heads into the kitchen to grab some ice for it. He hums absent-mindedly as he rummages around in the freezer, an upbeat tune to match his equally upbeat mood.

He is just about to rejoin the party, bag of frozen peas in hand, when he hears a faint sniff—then a loud hiccup. Peering over the kitchen island, Tom is greeted by the sight of Richelle sitting on the other side, cross-legged on the cold marble floor, crumpled red solo cups scattered around her feet.

"Richelle? What are you doing here?" Tom asks, because everyone else is in the rec room playing pool or dancing with each other, and normally Richelle would be amongst them, in the centre of it all. She is a mean shot at pool.

The blonde looks up, and Tom is startled to see tear tracks on her cheeks, her mascara running in black streaks down her face. Her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy.

"Oh god—Tom. I'm fine; I just needed a break from the party." Richelle's voice is slightly hoarse, so Tom fills a glass with water from the tap, before setting his bag of peas down on the counter in favour of grabbing a box of tissues.

Then, he sits himself opposite Richelle on the floor, ignoring the cold marble of the tiles and Richelle's protests to leave her alone.

"You look awful," Tom says, but he smiles to let the blonde know that he is joking. Because that is what Tom is good at—jokes and pranks and saying the wrong things at the wrong times. Tom isn't Liz—he doesn't know how to comfort people. All he knows is to make them laugh.

But it works, kind of. Richelle gives a miserable sort of half-chuckle and takes the tissues he offers, wiping the moisture from her face.

"I know," she says, hiccuping loudly again, "I know. I really wish you weren't seeing me like this."

Tom hands her the glass of water, and reaches to steady her fingers when they shake. Richelle looks embarrassed, casting her gaze downwards, but she sips the water gratefully before fixing him with a tired stare.

"Aren't you going to interrogate me? Ask me what I'm doing sitting on the kitchen floor whilst my friends are off partying?" She looks bitterly in the direction of the rec room.

Tom scratches his head. "Honestly, I'm not sure if I want to know."

Richelle huffs derisively, a small smile appearing at the corners of her lips.

"You're right," she says, and her eyes flicker to his for a brief moment before she is pulling herself up with the help of the countertop and making her way out of the kitchen. She pauses in the doorway, her back to him.

"It's probably best that you don't know."

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Once, they have dinner together at the local Chinese restaurant, all of the gang in attendance, noodles and dim sum and fortune cookies.

Tom sits next to Sunny and opposite Richelle, who nibbles at her side salad and daintily sips her mineral water without a word to anyone.

"Hey, Sunny, watch this," Tom says, and much to Sunny's amusement, he attempts to toss a dumpling with his chopsticks and catch it in his mouth. He misses completely. The dumpling soars past him and hits Nick on the side of the head.

"Moysten!" Nick growls, dabbing at his hair with a serviette, "I'm going to _kill_ you."

Rolling his eyes, Tom turns back to his plate, picking up a fortune cookie. Breaking it in two, he eagerly devours the biscuit halves before turning his attention to the little paper they had concealed.

_It is never too early. Just as it is never too late._

"What does this mean?" he asks Sunny, but loses interest when the waiter brings him an iced tea.

By the end of the night, Tom has all but forgotten about the fortune, walking home with Sunny and Elmo. The moon shines full above their heads and the sound of their laughter reverberates in the cool evening air.

He cheerfully waves them both goodbye when they have to leave him, and whistles merrily the last leg of his walk.

There is a figure on the footpath ahead of him, and even in the moonlight Tom can recognise her wavy, beautiful blond hair.

"Richelle?" he calls, and she turns around in surprise, pausing and waiting for him to catch up to her.

"I thought you were getting a lift home," he says once they are within speaking distance, hurriedly shrugging out of his jacket when he notices that Richelle is shivering.

"Sam had to go pick up his friend from the airport, so he couldn't drive me," Richelle says, and gratefully takes his jacket, pulling it tightly around her shoulders.

"Why didn't you walk with me, Sunny and Elmo? You shouldn't be out alone this time of night."

Richelle shivers again, so Tom motions her to stop walking so that he can reach over and do up the buttons on the jacket he lent her.

Richelle looks away as he snaps them into place. "I just needed to be alone for a bit."

"You've been alone quite a lot lately," Tom tells her carefully, pulling his scarf from his neck and wrapping it around hers, "You haven't been at the Glen all week, and you barely talked to Nick or Liz tonight at dinner."

Richelle shrugs. Tom sighs as they turn into her street, the light suddenly dimming as the moon slips behind a cloud.

"I'll walk you to your house," Tom offers, suddenly all too aware of the silence and blurry shadows at every turn. "You can never be too safe this time of night."

Richelle looks at him and smiles, just a little, but he can't quite be sure because it is gone as quickly as it came.

"Thanks, Tom," she says simply.

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Throughout his high school years, Tom has always had a bit of a crush on Sunny Chan. Sunny is not only pretty, but she is tougher than most guys Tom knows, has a great sense of humour, and she can do this really awesome thing where she kicks her leg straight up over her head.

For the past few days though, Sunny's been home sick with the flu. Liz hurriedly reassures their latest client, Mrs Baker who wants her garden weeded, that Teen Power could do the job just fine with five of their team. She draws up a new roster and tells Tom sternly that he is on the job tomorrow, along with Elmo and Richelle.

"Remember to tell them," she says distractedly, before pulling out her phone to dial Nick.

Tom waves goodbye before making his way home from where he had lunch with Liz at the Black Cat Café, pulling out his own mobile too. He curses when he sees that the battery is dead.

Rather than waiting to get home and charge it, Tom decides to take a longer route, in which he would pass both Richelle's house and the _Pen_, so he could tell his friends of the job tomorrow. Although to be honest, he is mostly eager to stop in at the Confectionery, which is also conveniently located on that route.

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Richelle lives in a large white bungalow, not far from the _Pen_ office, and her mum answers the door when Tom rings the bell.

"Come in, dear," she says with a cheery smile, "Richelle's just in the dance studio."

Tom follows her directions—down the hall, second to the right—and he knocks three times before letting himself in.

"Tom?" Richelle looks at him in surprise from where she is stretching on the wall bar. "What are you doing here?"

"We're weeding Mrs Baker's garden tomorrow," Tom says absentmindedly, watching as Richelle finishes her warm-up and starts doing pirouettes and pliés and god knows what because he is rather distracted by the way her blonde ponytail swings as she dances and the tanned skin of her stomach that is revealed by her too-short tank top.

Richelle pauses in her routine, looking over her shoulder at him. "Thanks for telling me, Tom. I'll be there."

Tom nods, unblinking, before reluctantly turning to leave. Richelle resumes her dancing.

In the hallway he turns back for a split second, his hand poised to shut the door. Tom looks back at the room more out of habit than anything.

And Richelle suddenly kicks her leg up, straight over her head, exactly like how Sunny does it but with infinitesimally more grace.

Tom's jaw drops.

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When he wanders into the _Pen_ office, half an hour later, Elmo stares at him in puzzlement.

"What up with you?" he asks. "You look rather stunned."

Tom just shakes his head.

"It's probably best that you don't know," he says with a wry grin.

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A frosty winter day in the middle of July sees Tom's breath visible in the cold, dry air, and Richelle's hands trembling in their gloves as she clutches a paintbrush between frozen fingers.

They are painting the fence of an elderly neighbour of Liz's, a rather unpleasant yellow colour that hurts Tom's eyes more and more every time he looks at it.

It is just the two of them today, and the first time he has seen Richelle in the past week. There is a cold going around, and much to Tom's dismay, Sunny and Elmo are both out sick with it.

"I can't feel my fingers," Richelle complains through chattering teeth, "They're so numb I can barely hold my paintbrush."

Tom looks sidelong at her, huddled miserably beside him in two thick coats and a knitted scarf, her blonde hair covered partially with a woolly grey beanie.

He reaches out and tweaks the bobble. "Lighten up, Princess," he jokes, laughing as she huffs and swats his hand away. "It's not so bad. I mean, you've got me for company, right?"

"Right." Richelle rolls her eyes, but she is noticeably brighter. "You know, we should just ditch and go for hot chocolate. Let Nick and Liz paint the rest of this tomorrow."

Tom chuckles. "As tempting as that sounds, I think Kontellis would have my head for painting only a quarter of the fence and leaving the rest to him."

Richelle laughs. "I guess you're right."

Tom finishes with his picket and moves to start on a new section of fence, but stumbles as his foot catches on a paint can.

"_Tom!"_

Richelle is looking at him in bewilderment and shock and with what looks suspiciously like humour in her eyes.

And then she laughs and laughs, and Tom peers down at his body from where he is sprawled on his back on the grass to see the entirety of his chest and stomach covered in horrible yellow paint.

"Oh, Tom…"

Richelle offers him her hand, and she is surprisingly strong enough to heave him up. There is paint splattered in his hair, paint on his cheek, paint on the damp dewy grass underneath Richelle's boots.

And there is paint on Richelle too, because Tom is laughing with her at his clumsiness and he reaches out to steady himself on the slippery grass and accidentally leaves a bright yellow handprint on the shoulder of her coat.

And then Richelle is yelling, but she is laughing too, and somehow they get into a paint fight, him grabbing another can and throwing it over her, Richelle tackling him to the ground with a shriek.

They don't stop until they are both completely out of breath and covered head to toe in splatters of yellow.

"There's more paint on us than on the fence," Richelle laughs, and runs a hand through her mussed golden hair. She leaves more paint than she removes, but doesn't seem to mind.

Tom bends down and grabs her beanie from where it had fallen in the midst of their fight. Miraculously, it is free of yellow splotches. Well, it is until Tom's fingers come into contact with it.

He pulls it gently over Richelle's hair, carefully adjusting the bobble.

"You have paint on your nose," Richelle laughs, and Tom rubs at it sheepishly with the back of his hand. Richelle has paint on her face too, but somehow manages to make it look like she means it to be there.

"You know—we should ditch this and go for dinner," Tom suggests, and Richelle raises an eyebrow at him.

"Really? We're covered in paint."

Tom grins at her. Feeling brave, he leans down and kisses her on the cheek.

"Don't worry, Richelle. You still look like a Princess."

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It ends on a breezy spring day in mid-November, the birds chirping in the trees and the sun's rays dappled as they shine gently upon Tom as he makes his way to the Glen, pencil in hand and sketchpad tucked under his arm.

It is there he runs into Richelle, lying on her back at the base of the large oak tree, blond hair fanned around her head, reading a magazine with a tranquil smile on her lips.

"Tom," she greets simply. Tom nods hello and settles down beside her.

"Bit early to be out, don't you think?" The sun has barely risen.

"It's never too early," Richelle says absentmindedly, flicking a page in her magazine.

Tom stretches back against the tree and begins sketching a sparrow that has come out of its nest and is pecking at the ground for worms.

It is only when the sun is beating down upon them, high in the mid-morning sky that Richelle speaks again, turning to him with her magazine held over her eyes to shield from the glare.

"Do you want to go for breakfast?" she asks, and smiles radiantly when he nods assent.

They find a table near the window of the Black Cat, and Richelle nibbles at a bagel whilst he digs into French toast.

They inadvertently spend the day together, just the two of them—tidying the attic for Mr Wilkins, Teen Power's latest client, taking a stroll across the back fields and eating club sandwiches sitting on the grass at the Glen.

When the sun begins to set, Richelle reluctantly tells him she has to head home for dinner.

"Thanks for today." She is sincere. "I had fun."

"Me too," Tom agrees, and he means it. "We don't hang out often enough, the two of us."

"Well," Richelle says, and she places a hand on his shoulder. "It's never too late to start."

And then she kisses him, leaning up on her tiptoes; just a sweet peck of her lips, surprisingly warm and tasting faintly of raspberries.

"Bye, Tom."

He waves her goodbye, unable to stop the goofy smile from spreading across his face.

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Days later, he remembers his fortune from that night at the restaurant.

He supposes he ought to pay more attention to his next one.

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**AN: This took me two days to write, which is very, very fast for me. Review if you wish, I'm not forcing you (but it would be nice!)**

**Thank-you for reading, I'm very glad to be back.**

**Much love,**

**RichelleBrinkley xx**


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